Industry May Meet the Worst Year, the New Track of Cement Enterprises Has Appeared

In 2026, the cement industry is likely to usher in the worst year since the new century: in the first half of the year, the whole industry suffered a loss of about 4 billion yuan. In the second half of the year, the coal price stood at a high level, the coal cost per ton of cement rose sharply, but the cement price rose less than in previous years, and the enterprises in the industry will suffer a large loss. The

demand side is difficult to improve in the short term, so it is an important direction to find a new way out for oneself, and the flow solidified soil is an option worthy of serious treatment. Instead, the window for the stall transformation of the main

cement industry has been opened

to look at the current situation of the industry. The loss of 4 billion yuan in the first half of the year has been more than three times of the same period in 2024; in the second half of the year, the cost side, the coal price remains high, and there is no clear downward channel in the short term; the demand side, the real estate continues to bottom out, the infrastructure is not supported, and the pattern of cement volume and price falling is difficult to change in the short term. For most enterprises, the hope of turning over by the main business should fall after the industry is cleared and the supply and demand are rebalanced, which is a process of years.

But the trough is precisely the window period for the layout of new business. When the industry is booming, it is easy for the main business to make money, and no one wants to be distracted by cultivating new businesses. When the industry is in the doldrums, idle production capacity, surplus manpower, and sales tasks that need to be filled urgently force enterprises to carefully examine every possible way out.

The transformation should have a direction, and the direction should be in line with one's own family background. For cement enterprises, grinding technology and ready-made sales network are important assets, and fluid solidified soil is just a new track that can use these two assets at the same time. It is not difficult

for

cement enterprises to enter the fluidized solidified soil industry, and fluidized solidified soil is not mysterious. It uses cement-based materials as curing agent, and mixes with engineering dregs, silt, tailings, etc. To form a flowable, pumpable and hardenable filling material, which can be used for foundation pit backfilling, pipe trench backfilling, road subgrade, site leveling and other scenes. Compared with the traditional graded sand backfill, it is self-leveling, easy to compact, and can solve the filling problems of narrow space and deep foundation pit, which can not be reached by mechanical rolling. In recent years, it has been more and more used in municipal and construction projects.

For cement enterprises, the entry threshold of this road is lower than expected. Cementing materials such as cement are used as the main body of the curing agent, and industrial solid wastes such as slag powder and fly ash are used as the auxiliary materials. The main body is the familiar product of the grinding line and the familiar field in terms of technology. In terms of production organization, the extended layout can be completed by relying on the existing grinding process. A production line can be transformed and a set of mixing and conveying equipment can be used to start a new business without heavy assets. There is also a layer of convenience at

the raw material end. The main material of solidified soil is the "burden" of cities such as engineering dregs and silt. The engineering side has to spend money to find a place to absorb them. Cement enterprises use raw materials nearby. The cost of raw materials is much lower than that of natural sand and stone. The cost of curing agent and processing is the main part, which also solves the social problem of dregs absorption. Catching the solid waste that others have a headache at one end and producing the filling materials that are popular on the spot at the other end, both ends of this business are reasonable.

From selling a bag of material to selling a scheme, the profit margin here

is the real difference in the downstream interface. Selling cement is connected with distributors and mixing stations, and the products are highly homogeneous, so there is no right to speak in the price war; making fluid solidified soil is directly connected with the engineering side, and selling is a complete set of solutions to backfilling problems, including curing agent ratio, on-site mixing, pumping and pouring, quality assurance, rather than a bag of materials. From a material supplier to an engineering service provider, the added value is not in the same order of magnitude. For cement enterprises struggling in large-scale losses, this upgrade is the opportunity to repair profit margins.

From the demand side, the potential of this industry is not small. With the promotion of urban renewal, underground pipeline network, subway tunnel and foundation pit engineering continue to generate massive backfilling demand; the difficulty of dregs disposal is a common pain point in all cities; solid waste recycling is the direction of policy encouragement. There is a consensus in the industry on the development space of fluid solidified soil due to the superposition of three conditions, namely, large amount of backfilling, large demand for absorption and sufficient policy support.

Of course, the new track is not a win. The docking engineering side needs to establish technical service capabilities, and the matching design, on-site construction and quality acceptance should be managed by someone; market cultivation also takes time, and the acceptance of the engineering side depends on each project. But compared with the endless losses of the main business, these are difficult problems at the operational level, not at the direction level.

Cement enterprises have production capacity and channels, but what they lack is not hardware, but the idea of turning production capacity into products. The road of fluid solidified soil upgrades cement from "selling materials at a low price" to "selling schemes at a high price"-breaking the situation does not necessarily have to wait for others to quit first, but also can go out first.